


"full is the earth of evils, full is the sea."

by my_lover_sings_to_slaughter



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: "little boxes" is so unhealthy i just UGH, Electrocution, Episode: s04e21 Red Dawn, F/M, Gen, Mild Blood, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Season/Series 04, Swearing, Torture, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence, a lot of the first chapter is me taking the episode script and going into detail with it, death mention, gun mention, i added to the scene as well in order to fill gaps, i'm terrible at writing fight scenes so i apologize, if you've seen the episode then you know what this is, just let me know if there are, possibly ooc but i tried, the second chapter will be the fall out from what occurs in the story, there might be some inaccuracies???, this scene has always intrigued me and i couldn't resist writing it out like this, when i say script i mean netflix captions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_lover_sings_to_slaughter/pseuds/my_lover_sings_to_slaughter
Summary: "...Brainiac-5 did all of this seemingly with no struggle. His movements came naturally, thoughtfully planned out mere nanoseconds before he carried them out. It was almost…robotic. The satisfaction on his face afterward, however…was nothing short of human. Brainiac-5 exhaled shakily and ran his hands through his hair. It must be understood, though, that his breath did not shake from fear or perturbation; no, it shook from pleasure and satisfaction. Once his hands reached his sides, he held out one and his Legion ring instantly gravitated into his grasp. He stripped the ring of the chain it had been placed on as J’onn entered the room behind him.'What happened?' J’onn questioned, looking around at the fallen bodies.'I’m free,' Brainiac-5 replied simply..."
Relationships: Alex Danvers & J'onn J'onzz | Hank Henshaw, Alex Danvers & Querl Dox, Kara Danvers & Querl Dox, Querl Dox & J'onn J'onzz, Querl Dox/Nia Nal
Kudos: 6





	"full is the earth of evils, full is the sea."

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: Swearing, unhealthy coping mechanisms ("little boxes"), torture, electrocution, violence, gun mention, death mention, mild blood.

The DEO very rarely had non-busy days. There was always some case to crack, a bad guy to take down, paperwork to be filed; but there were some days, like this one, where nothing was particularly going on. Everyone ambled about, trying to make it look like they were working. Even Director Alex Danvers. It took every ounce of her willpower to not say “fuck it” and go fall asleep in the break room, or better yet, go home. The quiet was suspicious. She kept waiting for something utterly horrible to happen. Some form of natural disaster, or some new alien ship crash landing downtown. Not that she _wanted_ anything like that to happen. No, she wouldn’t wish ill like that. But she was waiting. Any time something wasn’t occurring meant that there was something brewing.

Hours went by. Then more hours. Then more. It had gotten to the point where everyone was either walking in endless circles or simply falling asleep at their desks. Kara kept flying in and out, looking for even the slightest bit of trouble to assist with. Nia, as Dreamer, had even come in and noted how oddly calm the day had been. She hadn’t had any dreams, or dream flashes, or visions, or anything. She ended up sitting with Brainy upstairs as he rambled aimlessly about various things just so they both could have something to do. J’onn came in a little while after that and walked up and down the hallways with Alex as she looked around to make sure everything was in order (for the fifth time that day, but no one was going to question her).

“It’s just so…quiet! I know something’s happening; I just _know_.” She sighed in exasperation.

“Alex, sometimes there are just quiet days.” J’onn replied with an amused smile.

“I know, but this? This is too quiet. It’s suspicious.” After J’onn only replied with a chuckle, Alex continued. “Is there a type of alien that can do something, but make it look like they didn’t?” She threw out.

The amused smile didn’t leave. “I’ve never heard of such, but nothing would surprise me. By that logic, you would never know if they were doing anything anyway, so how would you catch them?”

Alex ran her tongue over her teeth in thought, then sighed again. “I don’t know.”

“Alex, I think you just need to sit down and take this as a day to relax.”

“But, J’onn, it just feels so…ugh! There has to be something wrong.” She hesitated. “That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it? I don’t want something bad to happen, but I-”

“Director Danvers.” Agent Reiff called out from behind them, causing them both to turn around. “We just received the footage that you requested.” She then handed Alex a tablet.

“Thank you, Agent Reiff.” Alex smiled, then watched as Reiff nodded and walked away. Once she was out of sight, Alex pumped her fist in victory. “Finally, something to do.” She whispered.

“What footage?” J’onn asked.

“Follow me and I’ll show you.” Alex smiled and started her way to the main area (for lack of the actual name) with J’onn in tow. Once there, they were joined by Kara, and the three of them continued up the stairs and into the conference room where Brainy and Nia had been sitting and talking.

Except they weren’t talking anymore. Unbeknownst to the others, Brainy knew the file had come in and what it contained, and he was doing his _damnedest_ to ignore it. _Little boxes_ , he said to himself. _Little boxes._ He was usually excellent at multi-tasking, but this file was particularly bothering him, and it would forever bother him if he didn’t do something about it. But he never did. He never made any moves to alter the file or delete it entirely. He was frozen…in fear. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, but it did unsettle him. What would they do after seeing it? What would he do after seeing it? What would _Nia_ do after seeing it? She had already seen the aftermath, which was bad enough, but this file…he didn’t know. He couldn’t think straight. Numbers and percentages danced around in his head and he couldn’t run through the scenarios quick enough to decide which ones made sense and which ones didn’t. _Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes, little_ -

“Brainy!”

His head whipped over to the source of the exclamation. J’onn, Alex, and Kara had entered and he hadn’t realized.

“Yes?” He responded, his voice thankfully coming out much more level than he expected. He felt Nia lightly touch his arm, so he turned to look at her.

“Brainy, you’ve been staring into space for a few minutes now. Are you okay?” She questioned, her voice soft.

“Y-Yes.” _Sprock_ , he cursed at himself. “Yes, I am…okay.” He added in a smile for good measure.

“Are you sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Alex replied.

He laughed nervously in his head but remained _mostly_ calm on the outside. “I assure you, I have not encountered any apparitions or strange presences this evening. I was simply, eh, ‘in my thoughts,’ I suppose.”

“O…kay. I mean, as long as you’re sure.” Kara looked at him suspiciously.

“…Yes.”

They all looked amongst each other, then Alex transferred the file on her tablet to the large monitor in the conference room.

“Well, we have recovered footage from the Amertek facility and the Shelley Island fiasco. I figured it could help with the investigation. You know, help us understand what all was going on there aside from what we already know.” Alex explained, receiving nods in response.

_The odds against me are stacking up by the moment. Boxes. Little boxes._

Alex hit play. For a while it was just soldiers walking in and out of frame, families being pushed down walkways, and people trying (and failing) to break free. It was, in a word, horrible. Horrible to watch and probably even more horrible to experience firsthand. There were quite a few parts that they weren’t sure they were going to be able to get through. In fact, Alex nearly stopped the footage but stilled when two very familiar faces popped up at the bottom of the screen. Brainy and Nia.

“Should I…?” Alex asked.

“No, we can keep going. Brainy?” Nia responded.

“Yes. Yes, do continue.” _Sprock_. There went his chance. He could have said “no” and this whole issue would have been over. He could still say it. He could change his mind. His friends would listen. But he froze again. He physically couldn’t force the words out of his mouth. It was strange. It was nerve-wracking. _This_ was nerve-wracking. He couldn’t tell them to stop. He couldn’t make it stop. He was- _little boxes. Little boxes. Little boxes. Keep yourself together_.

He mentally shook himself out of his thoughts and quickly noticed which point they had reached in the footage. He and Nia had just been separated. They kept calling after one another, but neither could do anything. The footage followed Nia as she was pushed down another corridor, into a room of storage containers, then thrown into one. The guards locked her to the chair and began to walk away.

***

“ _Where did you take him!?_ ” She exclaimed.

“ _That’s for us to know and for you to ponder, sweetheart. Say, you think she’ll be able to hear him scream from here?_ ” The main guard replied, then threw the second sentence to his friends with a laugh.

“ _Don’t hurt him, please! Do whatever you want with me, just…don’t hurt him._ ”

“ _Oh, you’ll get your turn._ ” He and the rest of the guards walked away as Nia continued screaming in the background. The camera followed them down a few more hallways and into the room Brainy was being kept in.

He was locked to a chair by his hands and ankles. He tried as hard as he could to shake himself free, but he couldn’t. He eyed the guards once they came in and noticed the main one fiddling around with his Legion ring.

“ _Where is she?_ ” Brainy asked. The guards simply looked at him. “ _If you hurt her…_ ”

The main guard gave a signal to a man in a lab coat. The man pressed a button in his tablet and Brainy’s head immediately shot back against the seat. The faint buzz of electricity was audible through the camera footage. After a few moments, the electricity was turned off, causing Brainy to shoot forward with a painful gasp.

“ _You’ll what?_ _Everyone else in here, they’ve got these crazy powers. You, as far as I can tell, are blue._ ” The main guard stopped talking and Brainy looked away, trying to catch his breath. “ _The girl on the other hand-_ ”

Brainy’s head snapped back up to look at him. “ _Please, please…do whatever you want with me, but do not hurt her._ ”

“ _Don’t worry, she’s next._ ”

Brainy shot forward in the chair, straining against the restraints. “ _You will not hurt her._ ” He demanded.

Another guard came forward and struck him in the head with the butt of his gun, causing Brainy to immediately collapse. He was completely frozen except for his head, which jerked back and forth. His inhibitors flickered and flashed on his forehead and the camera could hear what seemed to be the whirring of machinery. They let him sit there like that for a few moments before turning on the electricity again. He shot back in the chair and shook, then fell forward again after it was over, groaning and shuddering. They went through this process multiple times until it seemed as if Brainy was unconscious, or worse, dead.

“ _Why would anyone…hurt…her…_ ” He groaned out as his head fell forward, his voice coming out like a toy’s voice box after years of use.

“ _He’s done. Onto the other one, boys._ ” The main guard said as he turned around to leave.

Behind them, Brainy’s head wobbled back upright and it almost sounded like a machine was starting back up.

“ _No. No. No! No, you can’t! You can’t!”_ He cried out as green blood began to pool in his mouth. The guards turned back around and he looked away, clenching his eyes shut and trying to get a hold on himself. His body shook and twitched as he tried to focus on the advice Lena Luthor gave him some time ago. “ _Little boxes. Boxes…!_ ” He forced his eyes back open as his breathing started to get heavier. A tear began to slip down his cheek. “ _Eventually boxes get opened._ _There’s a story about that, right? It’s Greek?_ ”

Another sound of a machine rebooting rang out and Brainy jolted. He grunted and let out a deep exhale, then his features became lined with anger and depravity.

“ _You’re just primitives. And I have worked so hard to get back here!”_ His voice started as severely distorted, but it gradually shifted back into his own, giving way to a desperate tone rather than the angry one. That didn’t last long either, though, because his face turned into one of superiority and his tone changed to a snarky one. “ _You people forget that time travel is also space travel too. You see, Earth is moving at sixty-seven-thousand miles per hour. And at different times, it’s in different places, soyougottodothemathorelseyouendupinspace. And the math is not…easy!_ ” He smiled and let out a crazed laugh. He cut himself off and tried to get back to his train (or, well, _trains_ ) or thought. “ _My point is- my point is- my point is: I’m…from… the future._ ” He gasped for air in between each word.

“ _I think you knocked the dots off his dice._ ” The main guard muttered to the one who had knocked Brainy out.

“ _What I’m trying to tell you is that my species has ancestral memory_,” Brainy was gradually becoming himself again, “And my ancestors, very bad people. They were collectors, conquerors…I remember everything!” He screamed as more tears cascaded down his face. The rebooting sound occurred yet again and he looked around with widened eyes. “ _Uh-oh!_ ” He laughed. The laugh quickly morphed into a sob. “ _I don’t want to-_ ” He inhaled sharply, and his head dropped to his chest.

His inhibitors flickered for a few more seconds before coming back on completely. His entire body lifted and straightened, his face showing a neutral tone as he narrowed his eyes at his captors.

“ _In short, you rebooted me._ ” Brainiac-5 looked away and glanced around, almost as if he were contemplating something. “ _Aligned me with my more…emotionless ancestors._ ” His eyes flicked back up to the main guard. “ _And that was a calamitous mistake._”

Brainiac-5’s cuffs burst open and he instantly rose out of his seat. He held out a hand to attract his Legion ring toward him, pulling the main guard straight into his grasp in the process. He punched the guard in the throat, then let him fall. Another guard tried to attack him, but he caught him by the upper arm, pulled him in, chopped him in the neck, then let him fall as well. As the guards continued to try to subdue him, Brainiac-5 brought them all to the ground, expertly swinging at them with a rifle and even breaking one’s arm and another’s leg in the process. He stood above his handiwork and started to smirk before having to lean back to dodge a bullet. He swung the rifle at a remaining guard, as well as the scientist who shot at him. Brainiac-5 did all of this seemingly with no struggle. His movements came naturally, thoughtfully planned out mere nanoseconds before he carried them out. It was almost… _robotic_.

The satisfaction on his face afterward, however…was nothing short of human. Brainiac-5 exhaled shakily and ran his hands through his hair. It must be understood, though, that his breath did not shake from fear or perturbation; no, it shook from pleasure and satisfaction. Once his hands reached his sides, he held out one and his Legion ring instantly gravitated into his grasp. He stripped the ring of the chain it had been placed on as J’onn entered the room behind him.

“ _What happened?_ ” J’onn questioned, looking around at the fallen bodies.

“ _I’m free,_ ” Brainiac-5 replied simply.

J’onn gave him a strange look but didn’t question it. Brainiac-5 activated his image inducer and began to take a look around. He cast his gaze to the side and his eyes immediately zeroed in on a specific piece of machinery. He picked it up and analyzed it while walking toward J’onn.

“ _They’re draining alien power and converting it to kinetic energy for use in what looks like a version of the Claymore particle weapon_.” His voice was monotone and gravelly, and there was a hint of confusion in his facial features. “ _Yet there does not appear to be any extraction equipment on-premises_.”

“ _I did find a Transmatter Portal_.” J’onn replied.

Brainiac-5’s eyes slightly widened with a sudden realization, though his tone did not reflect this. “ _Then they must be moving the alien prisoners to a second location to drain their power._ ” He paused, glancing away, then looked back up at J’onn. “ _We must find it and disable it._ ” He began to walk away.

J’onn turned around and gave him another confused look. “ _Yeah, sure, but Brainy, what about…Dreamer?_ ”

Brainiac-5 turned to face him. “ _Yes. She could be useful._ ” He swiftly ran through analytics and behavioral predictions in his mind. “ _I believe I know where they took her_.”

“ _Hey, are you…are you feeling okay_?” J’onn questioned, sounding even more puzzled.

Brainiac-5 drew closer to him, forming and maintaining eye contact. “ _I am not experiencing any_ _pain._ ” He turned around, firmly placed the piece of machinery on a nearby table, then exited the room.

The camera followed Brainiac-5 as he expertly moved down hallway after hallway until he finally reached the room containing the storage units, as well as Nia. He walked up to-

***

The footage was paused.

“I…I don’t think we need to watch more of that.” Alex turned off the television and held the tablet close to her chest.

There was complete silence in the room. Alex looked to the floor and pursed her lips in an act of guilt. Kara was deeply concerned but couldn’t push herself to form words. J’onn squeezed his eyes shut and let his mouth fall open slightly as he began to understand why Brainy had been acting so strangely that day. Nia had tears welling in her eyes as she clasped a hand over her mouth. As for Brainy, well, he had been crying for a while.

He hadn’t realized, of course. He was caught in memories of that night, switching back and forth between the footage on the television and visions from his own head. He was still frozen in fear, not even noticing that the footage had stopped. A sniffle and a hitch in his breath shook everyone else out of their silence.

“Brainy?” J’onn questioned.

Brainy’s head twitched to the side at the sound of his name. It was then that he realized everything that had occurred. He looked at each of them, never making prolonged eye contact.

“Brainy, I-” Nia started, reaching her hand out to place it on his shoulder.

He bolted up and away from her, becoming more frantic every second.

“I-I-I-I-” He forced his eyes closed. “I’m sorry. I need to-to-to…I _n-need to_ …I need to go.” He quickly sped out of the room and disappeared downstairs.


End file.
